Leading by example

CPS program that pairs mentors with at-risk teens in danger of cuts

June 19, 2011|By Barbara Brotman, Tribune reporter

Stevie Powell, left, plays foosball with Davonte Flennoy while at a tuxedo fitting for prom at a store in Oak Lawn recently. In addition to making sure his charges get to school, Powell makes sure they get enough to eat, meet other appointments and are occupied with safe activities after school. (David Pierini, Chicago Tribune)

Stevie Powell pulled his maroon minivan to the curb next to a weedy empty lot in Englewood.

"Five minutes," he warned, as Dimonte Pryor, 19, slid open the door and sauntered to his house.

Powell, a big man with a quiet voice and the shambling gait of an overgrown kid, didn't want any delays. He was driving Pryor and Davonte Flennoy, 19, to a formalwear store to be fitted for prom tuxedos.

Powell is not their father. He is their advocate, a key role in the intensive mentoring program that has been a linchpin in the Chicago Public Schools' vaunted anti-violence initiative.

He waited for Pryor. In the back seat, Flennoy idly twisted a lock of hair.

Pryor came out, smoking a cigarette. He had changed clothes. Instead of his school uniform polo shirt, he was wearing a white T-shirt bearing the image of a young man with a cocky grin in front of a glowing white gate. Spray-painted letters on the back read, "RIP D-LO."

A car slowly rolled up, its side scraped and a front panel hanging loose. Pryor leaned over to talk.

"Let's roll, man," Powell, 42, called out. "I ain't got time."

But now Flennoy jumped out from the back seat and leaned over the car from the other side.

"Hey, man, let's go now," Powell urged. "We're gonna get late."

Flennoy and Pryor looked back at Powell. After a pause, they ambled back into the minivan. The other car drove off. As it passed, the three young men inside gave Powell and the minivan a long, slow look.

His guys, as he calls them, were safe in the van. A short time later, they were picking out vests and pocket squares.

***

Powell's role began with numbers. After 528 CPS students were shot, 56 fatally, over the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years, then-CPS head Ron Huberman turned to statistics for help.

He hired a consulting firm to analyze the victims' lives to predict which other students were at risk. The firm identified 250 students as "ultra-high" risk, 20 percent more likely than other students to get shot.

Those 250 were enrolled in a program run by Youth Advocate Programs Inc., a Pennsylvania firm that serves young people dealing with a variety of issues, beginning in October 2009. More students were referred to the program by principals, police and probation officers, and now 333 are enrolled.

Because of CPS' shaky financial status, YAP's future in Chicago is uncertain. A federal stimulus grant that provided the program's budget of approximately $10 million over two years is running out. Program officials say they have been told by CPS that the budget will be cut by 80 to 90 percent.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said YAP has not been given a specific budget but has been asked to provide its services for less money. "It costs roughly $26,000 per student per year to operate that program," she said. "We believe that we can find a way to reduce costs."

In a letter asking school principals to lobby against the cuts, David R. Williams, director of Chicago YAP, said the program would have to cut more than 300 students and fire 120 advocates and staff members if its budget is severely slashed.

YAP secures jobs for the students and provides activities during risky after-school hours. Advocates work with four or five students each, a ratio YAP says is crucial for dealing with such complex kids.

"These are the kids that we frankly don't give much thought to," said Jonathan Moy, YAP's project manager for CPS. "But for the past 20 months, we've made a demonstrated effort to bring change to these communities and these kids. It would be a little premature to pull these resources and pull these programs out."

YAP officials say the program is working, although statistics from CPS still show a high level of shootings and murders. During the last two school years, 444 CPS students have been wounded by guns; 53 have been killed.

But YAP CEO Jeff Fleischer said that YAP participants have largely been protected.

"The vast majority have been very safe," he said. "And if we are able to keep the high-risk kids safe, imagine if we were able to get the other kids into the program."

***

Powell became an advocate for four students in April 2010.

There was Pryor, a gang member given to gambling in the school washroom who was also, Powell found, a keen observer of people and places.

There was Pryor's half-brother, Brandon Harris, an earnest young man known as Six-Four though he had outgrown his eighth-grade nickname by an inch. While he was not among the 250 students most at risk, he had a history of fighting and had dropped out of school for two years.

There was Flennoy, almond-eyed and mercurial, bouncing on his toes one minute and silent the next. Flennoy's father was in prison when Powell met him, and he missed 97 days of school last year.